Tuesday, June 28, 2011

I was the child the teacher always told to stop daydreaming. At every parent-teacher conference.

Daydreaming comes in handy as a writer.

Here's what I love about writing and dreaming about sharing my work with others. It fits with the rest of my life. It meshes with the rest of my dreams. I can live an interesting life and enjoy every moment and then call it research. In fact it makes my writing more interesting.

Last week it was a wedding cake. Three weeks ago it was getting the rest of my garden planted. Hopefully this week it will be more intensive writing to get this book done. But every moment of my life I find something to write about.

I've been thinking about my characters and having conversations with them while I am building cakes or watering the garden. Anyone watching might think I'm crazy. But usually the only ones watching are my family and they know I'm just trying to write a book. They are excited about the book.

A couple weeks ago at bedtime my youngest daughter asked if I wanted to know who her favorite author is.

Monday, June 20, 2011

I've been thinking about doing this. I've listened to other writers talk about blogging, but it's taken a bit to decide I was ready to start my own. Having gone to WIFYR last week has me pretty motivated. It seemed like a good time to start. So here goes...

The Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference stretched my brain in many directions. I was fortunate enough to be in Kathleen Duey's class in the mornings. She really helped us all to understand what it takes to get inside a character's head and keep their viewpoint consistent.

I've heard of interviewing the characters in your story, but have never been successful at this. I was trusting the generic list of questions you can find in many books and lists. But Kathleen encouraged us to interview our characters as if we were sitting on the bus getting to know them. This really clicked in my head and the questions I am asking are now specific to my characters and their situation. Questions about why they made a certain decision or felt a certain way about something that happened in the story. It's very exciting. My characters are beginning to show real emotion and personality that was lacking before.